Alumna Miha Zhu wins the 2026 Leipzig Bach Competition
Eisler alumna Miha Zhu (29) has won first prize at the prestigious Leipzig Bach Competition. The prize is worth �20,000; she also received the Audience Prize, the B?renreiter Urtext Prize and a bespoke stage outfit worth �2,500. The three prize-winners of the Bach Competition will receive concert engagements at the 2026 Leipzig Bach Festival and at the ‘Im Zeichen Bach’ concert series in Brunico, Italy.
The competition jury also awarded Eisler student Mo? Dierstein (20), from Prof. Antje Weithaas’s class, a scholarship of �1,000 to attend a masterclass.
Miha Zhu completed her Master’s degree in 2024 under Prof. Eva-Christina Sch?nwei? at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin and is currently continuing her studies for the Konzertexamen under Prof. Natalia Prishepenko at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden. She began her musical training at an early age at the Julius Stern Institute of the Berlin University of the Arts under Prof. Viviane Hagner and Prof. Marianne Boettcher, followed by a Bachelor’s degree under Prof. Latica Honda-Rosenberg. Miha Zhu is deputy principal oboist in the Staatskapelle Halle and the associated Handel Festival Orchestra Halle.
This year’s jury for the Leipzig Bach Competition, chaired by Reinhard Goebel, included Rachel Barton Pine, Eleonore Büning, Friedemann Eichhorn, Rachel Podger, Johannes Pramsohler and Kathrin Rabus. The gala final and the subsequent awards ceremony took place at the Lutherkirche in Leipzig on 21 March 2026. Second prize went to the French Baroque violinist Céleste Klingelschmitt, and third prize to the Dutch musician Cosima Soulez-Larivière.